The last thing Kevin saw before the hand completely covered his eyes was his mother, standing motionless, and a tall hooded figure coming up behind her.

Kevin was then immersed in darkness and the next moment he heard his mother wail in agony. Her muffled struggling was accompanied by sinister laughter and gagging. He couldn’t see what was happening to her but he knew she was hurt. Immediately he started kicking and screaming with all his might, desperately trying to escape his offender’s grip to aid his mother, but no matter how hard he struggled it was no use. He could not escape.

Soon enough he heard a loud thump, like a sack of bricks hitting the ground, and Kevin’s heart sunk. He also heard dragging, more shuffling, and the loud clang of metal on metal. Amidst it all he could hear someone crying, and it took him a few moments to realize that it was the sound of his own sobs. He was still in complete darkness but he felt like there were tens of thousands of people surrounding him, watching him. In his mind he could see their cold gazes; he could feel them.

Abruptly Kevin’s attacker let go of him, just as abruptly as when they first seized him, and for a split second Kevin saw something crumpled on the ground a little ways in front of him before his body fell helplessly to the ground. After he collided hard with the ground Kevin attempted to look up but was instantly stopped by his assailant, who pinned him back down. Kevin lay there like a doll, tears slowly falling from his eyes and dotting the pavement. He was sure that his mother was dead, and that now he’d be killed too.

Just as he was lamenting his situation he felt something hard come down on the back of his head. The blow let loose a crippling surge of pain down his spine and his head shook like a toy rattle.

Immediately afterwards everything went black.

***

When Kevin woke up his head was throbbing. He was lying on his back, on the ground, situated in a pile of smelly, rotting trash. He attempted to lift his arms, but the effort was fruitless; his whole body was aching terribly. Looking up at the sky he noticed the soot colored clouds were now lined in moonlight. It was nighttime and this confused him. Why was it dark? It was daytime when he arrived in the town, was it not? How many hours had he been unconscious?

All at once the horrendous events that had occurred earlier flashed through his mind: his mother and him being attacked by unknown assailants, his mother’s screams, the disgusting almond smell overpowering his senses throughout the whole ordeal. Flooded with such thoughts Kevin snapped up to a sitting position and gasped.

Before he knew it raw sobs were bursting out from his throat and he sat there weeping for a long time. His parents were gone, his mom surely dead. He was all alone in this smelly, grimy town. Why did this have to happen? Why to him?

When he was all cried out he stared at the trash surrounding him. He sat there without moving, feeling like an empty shell of a person. For a good while he contemplated giving up. The idea of lying back down in the garbage and slowly rotting away into nothingness had a strange appeal to it. Now that his parents were gone he saw no point in going on.